I’m not a child, Barack, but I do still work in the community, you?

On ABC’s This Week, White House Political Director David Plouffe said:

“This isn’t about playing on a Republican playing field. This country, our economy, has to reduce the deficit, we have to live within our means. And if you’re a progressive, there’s a powerful case for deficit reduction. Things like college loans, college scholarships, spending on things like roads and bridges that put construction workers to work, if we don’t reduce the deficit in the not too distant future, we’re not going to have room to do any of that. So we’re going to have to live within our means…”

David? Barack? All of you who would pump up your own credentials on the backs of the poor?

Those of us out here in this country who tend to believe we are all in this thing called the United States together are not children. We don’t need to be lectured. We understand what it looks like when politicians take compassion and bastardize it for their own benefit. We understand what it looks like when rich complain about private jet traffic jams getting their kids to summer camp in Maine, while a Democratic President allows Medicare cuts. We understand what an enormous tax break for the wealthy looks like, while the poor get screwed.

We understand, Barack, that a cuts only budget deal with some half-baked promise of the potential for maybe…we’ll see, and think about later loophole closures, is good enough for you and your Republican friends.

Friends like Warren Buffet who said,

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Warren Buffett, the world’s third-richest man, said in 2006, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Buffett had done the math and realized that he paid far less, as a fraction of his income, than the secretaries in his office.

We get it.

And we agree, this country does have to reduce its deficits. Many of us tend to read economists though, a whole lot of economists who almost as a rule say austerity cuts, especially in a recession are a bad idea. Shit, ask Britain how well their version of austerity (cuts only, no revenue) isn’t working.

It’s actually pretty simple…follow along:

Budget cuts lead to lost income for many, many people. When people lose income, they don’t spend. When other people see people lose income, they don’t spend either. If nobody spends, businesses don’t make money. If businesses don’t make money, the economy doesn’t grow. If there’s no growth, no new jobs are created. No new jobs leads to lost income for many.

So, don’t lecture people who care about others, believing they don’t understand the deficit, how we got here, or that we don’t really understand what it means to the future. We do. We just think you either can’t read or don’t listen to economists or the American people…or maybe your self-interest outweighs your compassion and ability, your necessity, to fight for the people you made all those promises to, and now see fit to lecture.

Either way, the poor and middle class are getting screwed, again, by a Democratic President…on a Republican playing field.